Doctor, My Polestar Hertz Not content with an all-Tesla EV fleet, Hertz has struck up a deal with Polestar for up to 65,000 Polestar 2s. While that’s more than twice as many cars as Polestar delivered worldwide last year, deliveries are expected to be spread out over five years so production capacity shouldn’t be a problem. Speaking with Automotive News, Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath seemed excited about the brand exposure possible from this deal. “People trying an electric car perhaps for the first time will be doing it in a Polestar,” said Ingenlath. While brand exposure is awesome, fleet sales are also great way to build up pre-owned programs. All of these rental Polestars are expected to make their way back through the Polestar retail network, opening the door to more used EVs. More used EVs means more choice and affordability, a good thing for people who don’t want to or can’t afford to take the initial depreciation hit of buying new. As cool as this news is, it raises a few questions. How will data privacy be handled in rental cars with Android Automotive infotainment? Will renters view the Polestars positively given the patchy state of third-party charging? Will Hertz still call the cops on customers by wrongly flagging rented-out cars as stolen? Time will tell. GM And Honda Double Down On EVs Remember the EV partnership that GM and Honda announced last year? It just received a huge boost courtesy of new, ambitious plans for affordable EVs. As expected, these new vehicles that ride on a joint-developed platform and use GM’s Ultium battery tech. The first model is expected to go on sale in 2027 and GM and Honda expect to build millions of them, a seriously bold target if I’ve ever seen one. The first vehicle expected on this platform is a compact crossover SUV. No surprise there, compact crossovers seem to be all any automaker can imagine right now and an affordable electric option should be a smash hit with consumers. During a call with reporters on Tuesday morning, Ken Morris, GM’s executive vice president of electric, autonomous and fuel cell programs, said that these joint-developed vehicles are expected to start at under $30,000. That’s a massive step forward for EV affordability, though $30,000 is still a lot of money for many consumers. Funnily enough, this isn’t the first time that Honda and GM have collaborated; not only did GM tap Honda to supply J35S1 3.5-liter V6 engines and H5 automatic gearboxes for the first-generation Saturn VUE, Honda licensed OnStar for use in Acura vehicles from 2002 to 2006. Time really does seem like a flat circle sometimes. The War In Ukraine May Have Slashed Car Production By 150,000 Units When Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, nobody really knew how drastically this act of aggression would affect vehicle production. Would automakers be nimble enough to source wiring harnesses, mechatronic assemblies and other critical components from suppliers outside Ukraine in a timely manner? Erm, not really. A new report from LMC Automotive estimates that new car production has been slashed by 150,000 units across Europe. This lines up well with a two-week shutdown at BMW’s Oxford assembly plant, Porsche cutting shifts at Zuffenhausen and Leipzig, and Mercedes-Benz reducing capacity at their flagship Sindelfingen assembly plant. While manufacturers are slowly ramping up production by sourcing parts from other suppliers, plant workers still have to bear the brunt of these shutdowns. One anonymous worker at BMW’s Oxford plant confided to Oxford News that line workers were only paid 40 percent of their usual wage during the latest shutdown. Fortunately, automakers seem to be pivoting to other suppliers, so this drought will likely be largely resolved by summer. The Toyota GR86 Is Getting A Spec Series Great news for anyone who loves one-make racing series: Toyota’s launching one for the GR86. This isn’t some home market series for us to daydream about either, Toyota’s latest baby coupe is going wheel-to-wheel in North America. Organized by Toyota Gazoo Racing North America, the GR Cup will consist of seven races on American soil where caged-and-shod GR86s will go wheel-to-wheel. While we don’t have a ton of info on the cars right now, a teaser photo shows a cage, a wing and refreshingly few other modifications. We wouldn’t be surprised if series costs are on-par with the Mazda MX-5 Cup, making the GR Cup a relatively affordable way to go wheel-to-wheel racing. The GR Cup kicks off in 2023, so you still have time to pinch your pennies and save up for a race car. More information is expected to be announced this summer and we’ll have it for you as soon as we can get our hands on it. Fast Audis Recalled For Exploding Turbos Audis have long held a reputation for being 2 Fast 2 Fragile and the previous generation of 4.0-liter V8 cars are no exception. While owners, shops and the aftermarket have known of turbocharger oiling issues with these engines for a long time, Audi’s only just issued a recall yesterday. What exactly is the problem? The mesh screen on the turbochargers’ oil feed lines is extremely fine, so carbon buildup and other gunge can block the mesh. Blocked oil line mesh accelerates turbocharger bearing wear, and accelerated bearing wear usually ends with the turbocharger’s turbine hitting the housing or the cartridge shaft snapping entirely. More than 26,000 2013-17 Audi A8, S8, S6, S7 and RS7 model have been recalled, with owners expected to be notified of this recall on or before May 20. The silver lining? Because the turbochargers on an Audi 4.0 TFSI V8 are right in the engine’s vee, servicing the turbo lines isn’t a huge pain in the ass. The Flush Whelp, time to pull the lever on today’s issue of The Morning Dump. Hey, weight reduction is great for racetrack performance and the easiest weight to reduce is usually by getting rid of what you had for dinner yesterday. From our vantage point this Tuesday, the EV revolution has already begun. Between the push for affordable EVs and surprisingly lively mass-market adoption, we’re a lot closer to the future than we think. Whether launch control in a Porsche Taycan Turbo S or the joys and pitfalls of running a dirt-cheap Nissan Leaf as an about-town beater, we’d love to hear your EV experiences in the comments. My best friend’s dad just traded in his E70 X5 diesel for a brand new Ioniq 5 and is absolutely loving it, so I’m pretty stoked for him. Generally runs in conjunction with the Aussie V8 Supercars I’ve been done with gas for years, can’t wait to finally make the jump! I will seriously look at the Polestar 2 in a few years when my teenage daughter takes over my current car but that hinges on a few things. I won’t pay a near lux price for a car with a rental car semblance. The charging network really has to improve for non-Tesla EVs. Polestar only has two dealers in my state and that’s it. You have to drive two states over in any direction to find another dealer. How about Daily Tread? or Front Differential or some such the like? This could also spawn people to buy them. I usually rent a car I am thinking about and drive it for a bit to decide if I want one. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes that is what I get at the lot. 30 mile round trip daily commute. Suburban home with garage to charge. Not scared of electricity (converted golf cart to a DIY lithium battery). Issues are: wife can’t remember to even plug in her phone to charge and limited room for cars. We aren’t dropping the minivan, and I’m not dropping my 6-speed E90 330i. Also, I refuse to ever have a car payment… Come on RAV4 Prime or EV6 in a few years! My whole order was bit of a clust*rfuck so far. So I ordered Skoda Enyaq 80 4×4 (think ID4 but with actual working interior and bigger trunk) last autumn as company car. First HR lost my application, then leasing firm did pretty much the same and 2 months later when it was finally processed the delivery time had slipped from 4 to 8 months. So at that point (+ the 2 month initial delay) the delay was at 10 months. Then the war happened and now the delivery time is somewhere around 16 months. I’ve been an early supporter of electric cars because of Tesla, but my love of Tesla as a car company has had it’s positive and negative reactions with regards to both the cars and the company. I spent some time in Southern California recently and it’s almost funny how Teslas are about as common there as Buicks around Detroit. You can’t turn a corner without seeing one and even now, compared to my last visit only three years ago, you can spot multiple electric cars, from multiple companies, on nearly every block. My Scat Pack Challenger definitely made me feel like the last of the dinosaurs, which wouldn’t bother me too much if it wasn’t for the $5+ per gallon of the 91 octane my car required. My daughter and her fiancé came to visit for a few days so I wanted a roomier car to shuttle them around to all the sites while they were there so I decided to rent a car. I thought I would use Turo for the first time and as I looked through the list of cars, I saw so many Teslas available and each time I looked at a 4-cylinder CUV of some kind I could only think of how much gas I would still be using. So I took a chance and booked a base Model 3 for the weekend thinking that I would also finally get some real-world view of using a Tesla. All of the gimmicks aside, like the built-in video games, the fun fart noises for turn signal audibles, and the weird boom box mode that disturbed the residents at my daughter’s hotel, the core of it all, the technology that makes a useable and functional electric car available to the masses, was beyond impressive and not what I had initially assumed it would be. Not only did the car just perform like a normal car, most of us forgot that we were even driving an electric car at all. Initially, I kept watching the range and worrying that I may need to plug it in everywhere we parked, but that wasn’t the case. We drove from Laguna Beach, all around Los Angeles, and back home to Laguna without a worry. However, we did deplete the charge to about 30 miles at the end of our day trip. I knew the 110V would not charge the car enough for our next trip to Universal Studios the next day so we looked for the closest Supercharger. It was a few miles away at a shopping center and the car’s info center estimated that it would take about an hour or more to charge to 80%. My wife and I thought “well there’s the downside”, but we were wrong again. We arrived at the charger where other Teslas were lined up and waiting. I’ll admit that all of the owners were courteous of each other and politely waited their turn. After waiting about 15 minutes, we pulled in, plugged in, and just decided to make ourselves comfortable for about an hour. To our surprise, it only took us about another 15 minutes to get to 80%. I decided to keep going. I took us up to 90% for a total charge time of less than 20 minutes and a total cost of about $10. We drove back to our condo, plugged in to the 110V, and let it charge to 100% over night. The next morning, we had no worry about our trip to Universal and back, which still left us with more than 50% charge. Speaking in charge percentages says nothing if I don’t compare it to miles, right? So, for comaprison, a full charge on the base Model 3 gave me over 200+ miles before I needed to recharge on Saturday night for about $10. The same trip, with my Challenger, would have burned through a full tank of gas. I know this because I was doing this over and over again each weekend and I was paying about $80 to fill my car each time. Sure, the rental cost negates that expense, but that’s not the point. I rented the car for the extra room I needed, but also chose the Tesla for the experience. The short 15 minute charge to 80% also quelled my concerns about possibly driving one across the country too. I’m not ready for my own Tesla, but my daughter’s new Model Y is set to arrive at the end of this month. I’m holding out because I don’t really need another new car yet and I’m also a bit of a Mopar person. Being the son of a Chrysler retiree has me almost always buying or leasing a Mopar, so I’m waiting for at least the 2024/25 model year before I lease my first electric car for the family. I love cars. I love my old cars and new cars. I love the sounds and smells that come from gasoline-powered cars. It’s part of who I am, but I’m also no Luddite. I’m all for the technology that have made our cars more efficient and powerful at the same time and I’m also all for the the new technology that presently brings us our electric future.
